Amazon Brings Kindle Fire’s Killer Instant Video Feature to iPad

Amazon wants to sell you content and products, and it doesn’t care which devices you use to help achieve that goal. On Wednesday, Amazon released an iPad version of its Instant Video app. The app accesses Amazon’s video library of over 120,000 movie and TV show titles, and makes the iPad the only mobile device other than the Kindle Fire to receive Amazon’s special brand of video love.

“We listen to our customers and are always innovating on their behalf. Amazon Instant Video for iPad was one of our top customer requests, so we delivered,” an Amazon spokesperson told Wired via email.

One of the features customers love about Amazon is Whispersync, a technology that’s usually associated with Amazon’s Kindle hardware and Kindle apps. Like the Whispersync e-book feature, Whispersync for Instant Video keeps track of your progress in a piece of content, and syncs a video placeholder with other devices tied to your account. So, if you’re at a pivotal scene during a Doctor Who episode and you stop the video, you can pick up where you left off on another device that supports Amazon Instant Video.

In addition to the Kindle Fire and now iPad, those other devices include smart TVs, TiVo, Roku, Xbox 360 and select Blu-ray players. Whether Amazon’s iOS love will soon translate to the Apple TV remains to be seen. On Tuesday, Hulu Plus appeared on the Apple TV, expanding the device’s streaming library access by leaps and bounds. The Hulu addition also made Amazon Instant Video’s missing presence from Apple TV ever more glaring.

So what say you, Amazon? Will you bring video to Apple TV, or even Android tablets like the Nexus 7? An Amazon spokesperson told Wired via email, “We are always looking at ways to expand the service but I don’t have any specific to announce today about Android or Apple TV apps.”

While Apple exercises complete control over the apps and services built directly into Apple TV, a new content mirroring scheme in Apple’s Mountain Lion OS allows desktop video to beam directly to the set-top box (and once that desktop video hits Apple TV, it can be funneled directly to a big-screen television). So, considering the new display mirroring opportunities, it would make sense for companies like Amazon to work with Apple in getting their apps onto Apple TV, if only to control how their content is displayed.

The Amazon Instant Video app is available now for iPad for free. Pardon us while we spend the rest of the day watching Sons of Anarchy.